How do you attract the best people and maintain energy and creativity among your employees

3 Answers

The employee journey at Vinomofo is a little different to many places, and a lot of thought has gone into it, and will continue to.
We’ve disconnected salary and performance from how our team behave as humans: salary is market-based and reviewed annually; performance is rewarded periodically via a team-based bonus; human behaviour becomes our ongoing focus for continual improvement.
On hiring, people tend to come to us, because they believe in what we do, and how and why we do it. It’s a natural process, and that’s the best first step for us. Then we just have to screen those candidates using the right measures. Those measures are attitude, strengths and behaviour rather than skills and education. You can always teach, but the person has to be willing to learn, and actually want to be the best at what they do.
We hire on attitude, and we coach to keep people. We’ve had many people change their role within the company because their strengths turned out to be better utilised in other areas. Our GM started as a buyer, wasn’t great at that, moved through a content role and is now a leader in the company. That doesn’t happen many places, and you just have to watch the engagement to see how a human approach produces human results.

A lot of people don't want a normal 9-5 job and lets be honest you don't want your employees to have the 9-5 mentality either.

People are motivated by different things and it is important to keep that in mind when look at rewards programs. Sometimes cash bonuses get a little boring and predictable so change it up a little. Ask your employees what they want.

KPI's should always be setup with the companies goals in mind. If employees are achieving targets based on KPI's then your company is achieving it's goals and your employees are achieving their targets resulting in rewards.

For some employees they want to know they have a future in the company. They want something to work towards. By providing training they have the ability to learn new areas of the company and it could help them find something they are passionate about.

Part of your KPI's could include training, this means in order for an employee to make their monthly target they must also complete 1 training program you have. This could be a short only training course you have setup. It could be based on industry legislation, compliance issues or career development.

This not only ensures your employees are up to date with current legislation increasing your compliance, it also gives them the opportunity to improve themselves.

If your employee thinks they are going to be stuck behind the same desk for the rest of lives what motivation could they possibly have to be energetic and creative?

Rewards can be in the form of training and giving them more responsibility. That not only helps you out it can also really motivate them.

Oh, and one thing I would like to point out.

Don't ever hold a company meeting to tell everyone how they made you so much money for the month unless you are also giving them a reward.

I remember when I was a teenager working in a factory. The owner gathered all the employees in the workshop and said.

"I would just like to congratulate you on making an extra effort this month. This month has been the most productive in a long time and as a result we have made a lot of money. Thank you for doing the extra over time (unpaid) and working faster".

Needless to say as soon as he walked back into the office all the workers were saying:

"Sure George, it is always a pleasure to break our backs to make you more money".

and

"Thanks for the motivation jerk, wont happen again".

The owner pushed us harder for the month saying we had fallen behind. However it was leaked he was just trying to see how much he could push us to increase productivity. Forcing people to do unpaid overtime is not the best option. Then rubbing it their faces afterwards really had an impact. A lot of people quit the following month.

Attracting the best people to your business first of all must come from the business owner. Deciding what you want to achieve and where the future of your business is leading is the first smart step to attracting and keeping valuable employees who can then come in line with your vision. The best way to attract your perfect employee is to create the perfect environment for this employee to thrive.

By looking at the environment from an external point of view allows you to customize the position within this environment. By using nature for example. If you are looking at attracting a rare Ulysses butterfly to your garden you would plant a Ulysses attracting tree hence creating a habitat to thrive, the same for the office. If you want to attract a certain worker who displays an energetic and visionary outlook you create a position which allows for this development, you give this employee the opportunities to display and thrive and the infrastructure to accommodate this employee.

Another valuable tool of attracting and keeping a great employee is through demonstrating great leadership by allowing positive communication which is reciprocated to your employee through rapport and leading by example. This in turn allows the maintenance for the positive energy and diverse creativity. Having open channels of communication and an attractive thriving environment allows those that you have attracted to help shape and inspire the evolution of your business along with their own personal development.